Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Jan Klimkowski]

The lead Murdoch editor behind this scandal was the News of the Screws' Andy Coulson, who resigned in disgrace, and was then appointed as David Cameron's Propaganda Chief.

The Tory version of Alastair Campbell.

The Guardian has just published the following additional expose on his methods:

Andy Coulson hit by new tabloid trick charges

Exclusive: Paper hired convicted private eye while Tory PR chief was in charge

David Cameron's communications director, Andy Coulson, will come under fresh pressure to defend his editorship of the News of the World and his knowledge about the illegal activities of his journalists amid new allegations about the paper's involvement with private detectives who broke the law.

The Guardian has learned that while Coulson was still editor of the tabloid, the newspaper employed a freelance private investigator even though he had been accused of corrupting police officers and had just been released from a seven-year prison sentence for blackmail.

The private eye was well known to the News of the World, having worked for the paper for several years before he was jailed, when Coulson was deputy editor. He was rehired when he was freed.

Evidence seen by the Guardian shows that Mr A, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was blagging bank accounts, bribing police officers, procuring confidential data from the DVLA and phone companies, and trading sensitive material from live police inquiries.

Coulson has always insisted he knew nothing about the illegal activity which took place in the News of the World newsroom, telling MPs last year: "I have never had any involvement in it at all."

Mr A cannot be named now because he is facing trial for a violent crime, but his details will emerge once he has been dealt with by the courts. Coulson tonight refused to say whether he was aware of Mr A's criminal background, or of his return to the paper following his prison term. He said: "I have nothing to add to the evidence I gave to the select committee."

The latest disclosures bring to four the number of investigators known to have worked for the NoW while Coulson was either editor or deputy editor of the paper. All four have since received or had criminal convictions. All four are known to have used illegal methods to gather information.

The new details emerged on the day a committee of MPs criticised the "collective amnesia" and "deliberate obfuscation" of News International executives over their attempts to cover up the phone-hacking scandal. The committee found that Coulson was right to have resigned as editor but said it had seen no evidence that he knew hacking was taking place.

The Guardian can name three more people whose voicemail messages were intercepted by the News of the World's private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, during Coulson's editorship.

George Galloway, the Respect MP for Bethnal Green, has been approached by Scotland Yard and told that, in material which they seized from Mulcaire, they found evidence to suggest that his voicemail had been intercepted. In March 2006, Galloway was the target of an apparent attempt to entrap him into making anti-semitic remarks.

David Davies, former executive director of the Football Association, has also had a similar approach from police relating to a period in early 2006 when he was preparing for the World Cup in Germany.

Brendan Montague, a freelance journalist, whose mobile phone company, T- Mobile, confirmed that his voicemail had been accessed when he was in the midst of selling a story to the Sunday Mirror. He had offered the same story to Clive Goodman, the News of the World reporter who was jailed in January 2007 for intercepting voicemail messages.

This means that a total of 19 people have now been positively identified as victims, while mobile phone companies say they found more than 100 customers whose voicemail was accessed, and Scotland Yard has conceded that, in material seized from Mulcaire, it found 91 pin codes which are needed to access voicemail if the target has changed the factory settings on his or her phone.

Scotland Yard originally claimed that there were only eight victims and has been criticised by a parliamentary report for failing to investigate more thoroughly.

Coulson and the News of the World have always insisted that they had no knowledge of voicemail hacking by Goodman and Mulcaire. Coulson tonight refused to comment on the criminal activities of any of the four private investigators who are now known to have worked for the paper when he was either deputy editor or editor.

Mr A, whose identity is known to the Guardian, was hired by the News of the World even though his involvement in blackmail and police corruption had been the subject of national news reports.

A second investigator, John Boyall, worked regularly for the paper when Coulson was deputy editor and was subsequently convicted of illegally procuring information from the police national computer.

A third, Steve Whittamore, was also convicted of illegally obtaining police data after running an extensive network of specialists who extracted confidential information from banks and phone companies for the News of the World and other newspapers, including the Observer.

The activities of the fourth investigator, Mulcaire, who was jailed in January 2007 for hacking voicemail, continue to emerge although Scotland Yard is refusing to release basic information about the case.

Assistant commissioner John Yates was criticised by the Conservative chairman of the Commons' culture and media select committee, John Whittingdale, for failing to disclose information to MPs, but the Yard continues to refuse to say how many victims it has warned, and how many members of the royal household, military, police and government have been warned of evidence that Mulcaire intercepted their voicemail.

The police resisted a freedom of information request from the Guardian for so long that they were compelled to provide a written apology for breaching the terms of the Freedom of Information Act.

They also broke an agreement with the director of public prosecutions to warn all potential victims of Mulcaire's hacking. Today, they disclosed that they would not be approaching all those whose pin codes were found in the material seized from Mulcaire.

Lawyers for public figures are increasingly angry that their clients are having to pay legal costs to discover whether or not they have been the victims of crime.

The Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne, has tabled a series of parliamentary questions asking for more information and is demanding a judicial inquiry into the whole affair.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/feb...-the-world